Okay, So I’m Back.

But I had to share Inquirer architecture critic (and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist) Inga Saffron’s excellent article about Temple University’s misplacement of the new Tyler School of Art building.

The art school moved to North Philadelphia this semester after a 1997 decision was made to combine the main and Tyler campuses to stop overcrowding at Tyler. Many Tyler students were excited about the move and hoped that the new location would allow for easier access to Old City’s galleries and other city cultural institutions.

The University spent $55 million dollars on the new building, hiring famed Houston architect Carlos Jiménez. However, Saffron was not impressed with the completed work. She writes:

The $55 million building provides students with generous, light-filled and highly functional spaces. There are even several poetic moments that elevate the architecture above Temple’s usual. But this enormous, sprawling building, whose exterior resembles a run-of-the-mill high school, fails to forge a desperately needed sense of place.

Much of this is due to Temple’s failure to think more than one step ahead. Despite Tyler’s importance to the university, Temple dumped what should have been a statement building at the far end of the campus universe, plopping it down seemingly at random, so that its main entrance looks out onto the dumpsters for the Biology-Life Sciences Building. Similarly, the residents of Yorktown are now stuck looking at the butt end of Tyler, since its sizable loading dock looms over their immaculate, middle-class enclave, an oasis in North Philadelphia. [via Philly.com]